Memoirs of Lt. John M. Carah Now Available

Memoirs of Lt. John M. Carah Now Available

Mr. Carah's memoirs of WW-II, entitled Achtung! Achtung! Die Flugfestungen Kommen! (Attention! Attention! The Flying Fortresses Are Coming!), has now been published and available to the public.

Lt. Carah was an original pilot with the 381st BG and assigned to Ridgewell Field, Essex, England in May, 1943. On his third mission into combat his B-17 was shot down in the Department of l'Orne, Normandy on 4 July 1943.

The memoir describes Lt. Carah's training days from basic at the Presideo, San Francisco, the mammoth Santa Ana USAAC reception center, primary at King City, basic at LeMoore Army Air Field, abd finally to advanced flight training at Douglas Field, Arizona.

After being shot down, Lt. Carah began an evasion odessey that lasted some nine months before he finally reached allied control in Spain in late February, 1944. The adventure included a several month stint as personal Aide-de-Camp to Brig. General Barnwell Legge, the contoversial Military Attache at the American Legation at Berne, Switzerland and as a decoder for OSS station chief Alan Dulles.

In January 1944, Lt. Carah and seven other allied servicemen left Switzerland with the blessing of the Swiss government and crossed back through occupied France to reach Spain. In doing so, he became the first American airman to "escape" Switzerland and return to allied control.

The book features an extensive appendix that includes E&E reports and first hand accounts and interviews with French Resistance members who assisted Lt. Carah during his evasion.